None of this should surprise anyone, although, the MSM of this country and the UK want to affect postures of both shock and dismay. While some of the killings are undoubtedly the work of outsiders--that is the Pakistani security wallahs--most are homegrown efforts at payback. The locals know darn well who were either Talib or Taliban sympathisers.
When the main forces of the Islamist jihadist group were either killed or disbursed by the Pakistani offensive, it was time to settle scores with the survivors of the once swaggering, gun brandishing, head chopping, Koran waving boys of the Taliban. And, in Swat as in other parts not only of Pakistan or the Northwest Asian world, the best way to settle accounts with those who killed is by killing.
People who have been forced to abase themselves under the guns of True Believers who are quite willing to kill, mutilate, dictate, and who use fear as their stock in trade yearn for the worm to turn. When the old worm does turn, and, history shows time after bloody time that it will, those who crept and knelt before the muscle of the thugs now reclaim their dignity and plunge long knives (or at least shoot bullets) into the one time oppressor and its supporters.
While this will cost him the Humanitarian Concerned Citizen of the Year Award, the Geek both understands and applauds the production of mysteriously dead bodies in the streets and byways of Mingora and other parts of Swat. If nothing else, the corpses littering the landscape demonstrate the degree of anti-Taliban sentiment resident within the formerly dominated population.
Of course, there are other benefits to the proliferation of deceased Islamist jihadists. One is that it shows the laddybucks of the Taliban and its ilk that there are costs involved with their attempt to impose by fear and force a set of True Beliefs which are neither totally organic to the local population nor palpably legitimate in and of themselves.
Another benefit totally overlooked by human rights advocates and their propagandists is the longer term effects of the locals reclaiming their dignity and sense of collective self. It proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Islamist jihadists have no particular right to rule, that they are outsiders, a form of occupying power which showed itself to be even more unacceptable than the faraway, often corrupt, and normally inefficient and inattentive Islamabad government.
The stimulus of Taliban and the response of payback time may also awaken the locals to the power of self-organization which they possess. This, in turn, will allow the formation of a local interest oriented structure to mediate between the private space of the locals and the public space controlled by Islamabad to the ultimate advantage of the locals.
The Swat response, like the earlier and much more violent reaction by tribal groups outside of Kandahar to a spectacularly outrageous Taliban suicide bombing of a mosque during Friday prayers, proves that Islamist jihadists are their own worst enemy. Similar excess in killing, lopping off body parts, and invading traditional private space has sown the seeds of defeat for Islamist jihadists in Iraq and parts of Afghanistan.
Overlooked in the brouhaha over the "surge" in Iraq was the small, totally non-linear effect of the Islamist jihadist anti-smoking campaign in Anwar Province. The chopping off of fingers and lips of those caught committing the great crime against Islam of smoking was a small input. But, the contribution of the attendant outrage to the formation of the Awakening Councils and the Concerned Local Citizens was the key determinant of the ultimate defeat of the Islamist jihadists in the region. Even more than the American money, which facilitated the growth of these local groups, (which were initially self-organizing and only later sponsored by the US), the behavior of the Islamist jihadists epitomized in the anti-smoking lunacy spelled the end of the turban-topped, Koran-bashing jihadists.
(It deserves mention that when a central authority such as a religious denomination seeks to control the most private of spaces such as what you eat, with whom and when does a person have sexual relations, or whether people smoke or not, it is attempting to exert total and absolute power over the individual and by such control the totality of the individual's perceptions, beliefs, and actions. In the West one might consult the history of the Catholic Church or, if that is too sweeping, Calvin's Geneva theocracy to see this statement in action.)
The lesson for those contesting against Islamist jihadists everywhere is this. Often the best course of action will be to wait on any counter blow until the Islamist jihadists have over played their repressive hand with the locals. Then, even a minor counter strike will be non-linear in effect as it will embolden the locals to self-organize on their own behalf against the oppressive and quite illegitimate "occupying force" of the jihadis.
The Pakistani effort in Swat was, despite the temporary dislocation of nearly two million people and an exchange ratio of better than ten to one, a less than major, far less than total effort. It was a rather small change operation involving far more para-military personnel of the Frontier Corps than regulars. Even now, some months after the first bombs fell in Swat and the "assault" wave of Frontier Corps troops moved up the road, there are some three thousand organized Taliban guerrillas in remote enclaves. This is not the sign of a really resolute, full-scale attempt at destroying the bad guys.
The destruction of Taliban will occur not only in Swat but elsewhere in Pakistan when the jihadists get the message that they are not tolerated, not wanted, and will be killed by the locals should they emerge without having abandoned Islamist jihadism--and perhaps not even then if they have waged oppression on the locals. Rather than wringing hands over the collection of dead Talib on the streets of Mingora, the government of Pakistan and all of those outside the country who want to see an end to the odious presence of Islamist jihadists everywhere should be clapping, cheering on the hidden hand of payback.
And, that's a fact, Jack.
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